To Survive As A Social Enterprise, Purpose Has To Come Second

In 2012, Anna Robertson asked herself a question that many young people working in international development ask, “Who benefits from these programs?” She was working in Ghana on behalf of the Australian Government and was seeing a lot of money move from Government to Government. She was seeing a lot of “box ticking.” But at the end of the day, the money was not trickling down to the people who needed the support. For one thing, they needed jobs. Single mothers, especially, were living hand-to-mouth. Anna Robertson then did something that most of the same young people asking themselves that same question do not. She started a company.

Now take a minute. Close your eyes and picture what kind of company you think she started. Did you picture rural women holding hungry looking babies? Did you picture them weaving baskets or making some other handicraft? Did you imagine a brand centered around messages of how many women your purchase employs? If so, you pictured wrong. This is Yevu.

Yevu is a “socially responsible label, made in Ghana” but their website proudly proclaims, “Not charity, just work.” Robertson explained, “Your purpose is important, but if you don’t have a product that people want, then forget about it. It’s product or service first. The purpose has to come secondary.”

Yevu’s products do not need a social-impact story to sell. While it may be common to see a person wearing African-print on the streets of New York or Paris, it was rare to see it in Robertson’s native Australia. According to a parliamentary report, there are around 250,000 African-born people living in Australia out of a country of nearly 25 million people. Without a large African diaspora, the trend never really took off in Australia the way it has elsewhere. Nevertheless, Robertson thought that the prints would translate well because Australians are also “sunny, outdoors, colorful kind of people.” She was right.

Her first collection was a unisex collection. She made some samples and shot a campaign with a couple of friends. The images “represented a feeling of being in Accra. They were cool.” She ran a pop up in Sydney and sold it all. People reacted to the brand because to the Australian consumer, it was new. They liked the feeling of discovery. Yevu was no longer an idea. It was a business.

And with that success came responsibility. On one hand, starting with a minimum viable product and getting rapid feedback from customers is exactly what an entrepreneur should be doing. On the other hand, if you also have a minimum viable organization and the product is enthusiastically received, you can handicap your future growth. “I wish I could have gone back and planned the business better,” said Robertson.

She opened a store in London and even though they sold all of their stock, they lost money. “I just didn’t like doing the numbers. I was feeling my way through it,” she said.

But as much as Yevu is product-first, Robertson started it in reaction to the lack of job opportunities for the average Ghanaian woman. She knew that she had to take responsibility for the growth. She had to take responsibility for her customer. And most of all, she had a responsibility to her staff.

It’s like standing naked under a fluorescent light in front of a mirror. If you don’t know, then you don’t know. You can’t make informed decisions.

Robertson has now hired a CFO. While many small business owners do not like to give up control and give someone else complete line of sight into their business, Robertson likes that it forces her to take an objective and truthful look at her business. “It’s like standing naked under a fluorescent light in front of a mirror. If you don’t know, then you don’t know. You can’t make informed decisions,” she said.

One of the things that becomes apparent in the numbers is that it is expensive to run a business in Ghana. They’ve had to move in and out of three workshops for various reasons from theft to flooding. Before their volumes could cover it, Yevu started paying their women a living wage and providing high-quality training. In Ghana, as in many West African countries, apprentices actually have to pay for their apprenticeship and bring their own equipment. At Yevu, their apprentices are provided with housing, food, a living stipend, and do not need to bring their own sewing machine. They also accelerate the program so that the women only need to apprentice for one year instead of the typical three. In June, they shut down all production for a month-long training. Traditionally, seamstresses are paid by the piece, but because Yevu seamstresses are salaried, everyone was still paid in June.

Another thing that becomes apparent in the numbers is that these short-term expenses can lead to significant life-time cost savings. Retention is nearly 100% for Yevu’s 14 full-time employees. There is a cost-savings to not have to rehire and retrain. Retention also gives the team more opportunities to build trust with one another, which gives Robertson more leeway to innovate in their business processes. Social enterprises, like Yevu, are on the leading edge of quantifying the benefits of treating your employees well. One day, they may spill over to traditional enterprises having a social impact well beyond their mission statement.

At the end of the day, Robertson is very upfront about the limits of their brand’s social impact. They are not ending poverty. They are providing an opportunity for a dozen-plus women to earn a decent living and have access to a career path. They do not have an impact on their supply chain. But they do use a social enterprise, Fighting Chance, to manage their logistics in Australia. She is equally upfront about the fact that without a great product, none of the impact would be possible. And for the men and women discovering their clothes in Ghana, Australia, and around the world, the Yevu product is still the height of cool. That it’s made by women who need jobs in Ghana, that’s great too.

Yevu's products ship worldwide from www.yevuclothing.com. If you are in Ghana, you can purchase them locally at Lokko House.